


Wish for Holiday Cheer

by escritoireazul



Category: Practical Magic (1998)
Genre: Christmas, Family, Gen, Holidays, Sisterhood, Winter Solstice, Yule, Yuletide 2014, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2812568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Owens are women of magic and traditions, modified, maintained.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wish for Holiday Cheer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Apricot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apricot/gifts).



1.

Sally’s face scrunches up whenever she’s upset. The closer she is to crying, the tighter she squeezes her eyes. She’s _very_ close to tears now, all the color gone from her face. In contrast, Gillian’s cheeks are flushed pink, and her eyes wide open, dry, bright.

“Santa Claus is stupid!” Gilly snaps, and flings her school bag into the corner where it will gather dust until they go back in January. Her hair flairs out, a wild red mess, as she spins to face her sister. “Don’t you cry, Sally. Don’t you dare!”

Sally sniffles, and Jet goes to her, wraps her arms around the precious girl. For a moment, Sally lets herself be held, then she straightens and pulls away. “I’m not,” she says, and her face pinches even tighter.

“You are too! Don’t let them make you do that!” Gilly shoves herself into a chair, knocking her elbow against the edge of the table, not flinching. “They’re the stupid ones, believing some old guy stalks them all year and brings presents down their chimneys.”

“I know that!” Sally sniffs hard, and this time, she doesn’t pull away when Jet curls an arm across her shoulders. Still she stares at her sister, hurting and defiant.

“Then why do you care what they think?” Gilly springs back to her feet, brings her fists together in front of her, and then jerks them apart, down to her sides, an aborted, frustrated gesture.

“I don’t care!” Sally cries. “I just – I want to be _normal!_

“Oh, sweet girl.” Jet smooths back Sally’s hair and drops a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re so much better than normal. You’re special, my dear.”

Sally huffs. “I don’t want to be special!” Every bit of her is tense, sweet little girl trying to be stone.

Jet winces at that, forces herself to hold tight anyway. It’s the girls’ first Yule without their parents. They’re heartbroken and lonely, and the school children here never make things easy, not for Owens girls.

Jet looks over the girls’ heads to Frances, and they’re silent a moment, so much unspoken between them. Jet’s heart still aches; the loss of their sister to a broken heart, to Maria’s curse, is bad enough, and seeing so much of her in Sally, in Gilly, is worse. Their baby sister is gone, gone, gone, and there are moments Jet struggles to breathe.

“Stop caring about them!” Gilly snaps. “You’re better than that.”

“Oh girls,” Jet says on a sigh, snuggling Sally closer. For a moment, she’s stiff in Jet’s arms, and then she sinks into the hug. Gilly stands firm until Jet curls a hand to her, no magic but love, and she joins them. They’re tense, not touching, until Gilly reaches out and grabs Sally’s hand. “What can we do to make this better?”

“Not believe in Santa Claus,” Gilly spits out before Sally can respond. That doesn’t start up their fight again. Sally shakes her head.

“I just – all the other kids got to sing Christmas carols during the assembly.” Sally’s lower lip trembles, and she turns her face into Jet’s side.

“They laughed at Sally,” Gilly says, holding tight to her hand, glaring out at the world. “At me, but I don’t care.”

“They’re all going caroling tomorrow night,” Sally says, her words mostly muffled.

“Do you want to go with them?” Frances asks, brings mugs of cocoa – real chocolate, whole milk, cinnamon, marshmallow, homemade whipped cream, and just a touch of magic – to the table. Jet squeezes the girls a bit longer, then ushers them into their chairs.

“No,” Sally says, but she’s nodding. Then, “Yes,” and shakes her head. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“They’re stupid,” Gilly grumbles, and takes a big drink, leaving a smear of whipped cream along her upper lip.

“I like the songs,” Sally says. She twists her mug around in slow circles, and doesn’t spill a drop.

“We can go caroling,” Frances tells her. Jet is certain the girls don’t catch the underlying tone, but, like Jet, Frances will do anything for these dear, sweet, magical girls, even if the thought makes her insides curl.

Sally and Gilly exchange a long look. Jet can almost, but not quite, see the words flowing between them. They’re so young still, and already that sister bond has drawn tight. Owens girls who survive to become Owens women, they need each other, and that bond, that sisterhood, runs with and without words, deeper than blood.

“No,” Sally says at last. “Thank you, but … can we sing some of those songs at Yule instead?” Her eyes go wide. “Not instead of your songs, I mean, instead of going caroling.”

Jet smiles. “Of course, dearheart.” She thinks the songs are silly, jingling bells and flying reindeer, but if that is what her girls want, that is what they will do.

2.

Frances leans against Jet’s back, rests her head ong Jet’s shoulder. “They think that’s subtle,” she murmurs, just loud enough Jet can hear her under the music blaring from the radio. Sally and Gilly dance around each other, stealing drinks from mugs of “punch” and giggling as they weave silver and gold ribbons through pine branches and move pinecones dripping with glitter from one spot to another until they find the perfect place.

The vodka bottle’s looking low, and Sally and Gilly both have that alcohol flush. They’re young, and delightful, youth and magic twisting together until they feel indestructible. Jet well remembers how that felt.

“Sweet girls,” she says, leaning into Frances.

“Ridiculous,” Frances offers instead. “Here’s hoping they don’t set the house on fire.”

“Oh my.” There are candles above the fireplace, clusters on each table, individual pillars on every flat surface, rainbows of colors spread throughout the house. There’s only one spot empty, a little table in the corner of the living room.

Sally has a Christmas tree for it, tiny and plastic, branches dipped in fake snow. It’s strung with multicolor lights that blink off and on in sporadic patterns. Jet hates it a little, garish against their traditions, but when Sally sinks to sit cross-legged in front of it, drawing Gilly down with her, she’s beaming, and there’s nothing Jet wants more than for her girls to find happiness and peace.

“Oh,” Frances says, and turns. “Who’s that scratching at our door?”

Now that Jet is paying attention, she, too, can hear that faint scritch of nails on painted wood. 

“Christmas is for lovers,” Frances sings softly. She’d be offkey if there was an actual tune to go with the words.

“For families,” Jet corrects, but she’s smiling. “I’ll get the book and the bird. You let her in.”

Frances hesitates, head tilted. “Desperation,” she says, and something in her face twists. “This won’t go well.”

“Mmm.” Jet doesn’t say anything else, but does pull the door shut, closing the kitchen off from the giddy, giggling girls. They’ve seen so much already. She can spare them this little bit more.

3.

The house is quiet, the guests long gone home, Gary asleep upstairs. Only the Owens women remain to keep watch, Kylie and Antonia teenagers filled with giddiness and glee, Gilly and Sally still settling into their adult skin, and, always, Frances and Jet. 

“Hot buttered rum and spiced cider,” Sally says, handing over the last two mugs to Frances and Jet, then joins Gilly, each leaning against an arm of the couch, legs tangled together in the middle. Kylie and Antonia sprawl on the floor, heads close to the big Christmas tree, all lit up in silver and blue, lights like stars flecking the dark branches. They bump heels, elbows, tilt their faces together to whisper secrets.

One sister is pale and dark, the other red and gold.

There’s a balance in two, Jet thinks, and still she mourns Regina. Perhaps – she can think this now that Maria’s curse is long broken and the town truly their home – that is how the Owens women survived their loves lost, because their hearts could not be fully broken. She lived, and Frances. Sally and Gilly. They loved, and they lost, and their hearts were broken, but the piece their sister held, that piece remained whole.

She is grateful beyond words that Kylie and Antonia will never know that fate.

“Who’s turn is it to collect the last of the Yule log?” Sally asks. Gilly dramatically drapes her leg over Sally and points her toes at the girls.

“Which witch?” she cries, and laughs, and Sally hides her snort in the crook of her arm, nearly spilling her drink.

“Me!” Antonia springs to her feet, young and so exuberant still. “It’s my turn!” Carefully, she dons heavy, heat-resistant gloves and uses the fireplace tongs to ease a charred bit of wood out of the flames. They will keep it all year tucked away, ashes and magic, light to set against the darkness that can descent even on the brightest summer day.

There’s a lot of giggling as she puts it to one side, strips off the gloves, rejoins her sister. The candles are lit but droop, hot wax slipping down. The fire burns low. The Owens women are witches, lives built on magic and tradition, but there is room for change, Jet knows, as deep as her sinew and her bone. For Kylie, for Antonia, they will sit and watch the fire burn itself out, as the shadows grow long and the air chills.

They are witches and they are women, and they lace magic in this home.


End file.
